Maritime Union opposes Red Sea military involvement 

The Mar­itime Union is oppos­ing the deci­sion by the coali­tion Gov­ern­ment to send a detach­ment of New Zealand mil­i­tary to the Red Sea, after a request from the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca.

Ship­ping in the Red Sea has recent­ly been dis­rupt­ed by Yemen based Houthi forces car­ry­ing out attacks in sup­port of Pales­tine.

Mar­itime Union of New Zealand Nation­al Sec­re­tary Craig Har­ri­son says if the New Zealand Gov­ern­ment is con­cerned about ship­ping secu­ri­ty, there are bet­ter places to start.

“The Gov­ern­ment just can­celled replace­ment fer­ries for the Cook Strait, which is a major threat to New Zealand trans­port links, so they should try deal­ing with prob­lems a bit clos­er to home.”

He says if the Gov­ern­ment is seri­ous about pro­tect­ing New Zealand trade it must rebuild New Zealand ship­ping to pro­vide resilience and redun­dan­cy in the sup­ply chain.

Mr Har­ri­son says the Red Sea mar­itime con­flict had one solu­tion, which was an imme­di­ate cease­fire in Gaza and nego­ti­a­tion of a polit­i­cal solu­tion for Pales­tine.

He says the mil­i­tary involve­ment by the Unit­ed States and a small group of West­ern coun­tries in the Red Sea area could result in more vio­lence and insta­bil­i­ty.

“Rather than try­ing to ramp up a war, New Zealand should spend its ener­gies work­ing for peace by defus­ing the con­flict and end­ing the mass death of civil­ians espe­cial­ly with the ter­ri­ble sit­u­a­tion in Gaza.”

“As a union rep­re­sent­ing sea­far­ers we are extreme­ly con­cerned about the dan­ger all sea­far­ers are fac­ing in the Red Sea, and in the mean­time the only option is for ship­ping to avoid the area.”

The Mar­itime Union said the response of the Labour Par­ty and Green Par­ty oppos­ing involve­ment was the cor­rect one.